RIL open interest positions double

MV Ramsurya, TNNFeb 27, 2006, 12.10am IST

MUMBAI: The open interest position in the futures segment of Reliance Industries has nearly doubled in the past month thanks to increased investor interest in owning shares of group companies resulting from the recent demerger process. The open interest position for Reliance futures rose to 2.42 crore shares on February 23 — it was 1.23 crore shares on January 25. This translates into a 97% growth.

In stock market parlance, open interest typically implies the total number of options and/or futures contracts that are not either closed or delivered on a particular day. It is also described as the number of buy orders before the stock market opens for trading.

Market players said that the sharp rise in the open interest may be partly attributed to investors wanting to take advantage of the demerger to own Reliance Communication stock. "This led many investors to buy Reliance Industries' shares in the cash market and short it in the futures segment," said an analyst.